


not that damn impossible

by douxamer



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, Blow Jobs, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Gansey Loves Gorgonzola, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Physical Abuse, Pining, Ronan Is Oblivious, Slow Burn, Sort-Of-Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-25 08:04:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12526760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/douxamer/pseuds/douxamer
Summary: ‘I was thinking,’ Adam says eventually. ‘I’m lucky. That we’re friends.’Friends, Ronan thinks, and the word shakes him back to earth. He’s supposed to be Adam’s fucking friend.





	not that damn impossible

**Author's Note:**

> Non-magical AU. Some stuff's parallel to canon, but major differences include: Ronan's family is alive and well; Blue isn't cursed (woop! girl's gonna kiss!); and the gang isn't obsessively pursuing a dead Welsh king. (I took some major 'fix-it' liberties with Ronan's family, guys. Both his parents are very different to how they are in the books.)
> 
> WARNINGS: Violence; unhealthy/underage drinking; references to physical abuse and neglect; one scene that directly shows violent physical abuse.
> 
> Title from [Time of the Blue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYIFYygkNoA) by The Tallest Man on Earth.

It's a wood-smoky fall evening, and Ronan and Adam are out on the Barns' back porch, eating homemade carrot muffins and drinking beer. Well, Ronan's drinking beer. He snuck a six-pack out of his dad’s fridge to show off to Adam, at the risk of being grounded for ten years if caught. But Adam refused to take one, because he’s sixteen going on fucking seventy, apparently, so Ronan had to get him a ginger beer instead.

They've been studying Latin together for two months. It indirectly started with Ronan beating Adam to top of the class in the first two Latin tests of junior year. Adam confronted him one day and accused him of cheating, Ronan swore at him, and the long and the short of it was that Adam started wheeling his bike to the Barns on Friday afternoons so they could practise verb conjugations.

Ronan Lynch has no time for most people at Aglionby. The only student he actually liked, Noah, moved towns last year, and since then he's kept mostly to himself. But he always thought Adam Parrish seemed all right. Mostly because he keeps to himself too. Although it turns out Adam takes the concept to new extremes. Ronan still has no idea where the fuck he even lives.

And tonight's the first time Adam has actually been persuaded to hang around a while after they've packed up their textbooks. Ronan's spent most of the evening answering questions about growing up on a farm. Adam seems to find the most boring aspects of Ronan's life fascinating, like the fact that he and Matty help Mom make fruit preserves every fall, and how Dad makes him get up at five a.m. on Tuesday mornings for 'father-son bonding time,' i.e. helping repair the fences while his dad reminisces about the homeland.

Ronan has maybe got a little carried away in the last ten minutes: he's been explaining in detail how to deliver a lamb, including burning an afterbirth. Adam is looking distinctly grossed out.

'I was way happier not knowing any of that,' he tells Ronan.

'Hey, it's a fucking miracle of nature.'

Ronan's currently a little fizzy and light-headed, feeling the effects of downing several stolen beers on a near-empty stomach, and starting to say whatever dumb shit comes into his head.

'You know what I think about you, Parrish?' he announces. 'You're harder than you seem.'

In the flickering light of the candle, Adam’s eyes look dark. His fingers drum lightly on the neck of his ginger beer.

'Okay,' he says. 'How do I seem?' 

'Ugh.' Ronan waves a hand. 'I dunno.'

'Tell me.' Adam leans forward, rests his chin on his hand. 'I'm curious.'

Ronan dodges. 'To use Mom's words,  _lovely_  and  _warm_ and  _polite_ and __s_ weet,_' he says, enunciating each word in disgust. 'The only thing either of my parents says to me nowadays is "Why can't you be more like Adam?"'

Adam laughs. 'So I'm warm outside but hard inside? Like... a baked alaska?'

'Fuck off.'

‘I'm too bitter to be a dessert,' Adam says wryly.

'Is that a Twenty One Pilots lyric?'

Adam flips him off and brings the ginger beer to lips, then down again, narrowing his eyes at the label.

‘You _sure_ there’s no alcohol in this?’

' _Yes,_  grandma.'

They've been out here over two hours, but Adam's still – weirdly tense. He's sitting very straight-backed on his wicker chair. 

Ronan's mom sticks her head out to tell them there's some lasagne left out on the bench, and Ronan jumps violently and slops a little beer down his arm. Thank the Lord, it must be dim enough she can't see what he's holding. Just as long as she doesn't switch the light on.

'It's getting dark out, boys.' Ronan's mom reaches for the light switch, and Ronan swears under his breath.

'Mrs Lynch!' Adam says hurriedly. 'What are those animals? I've never seen them before.''

He points at a nearby field; she turns to look, and Ronan shoves his beer between the arm and cushions of his chair.

'Those're just... sheep, honey,' Ronan's mom says slowly.

By the time his mom switches the light on, Ronan has tried to assume a casual position. He smiles innocently up at her.

'You just saved my fucking life,' says Ronan fervently when she's gone.

Adam puts his head in his hands. 'Why did I have to point at the sheep. She'll think I'm psychotic.'

'Won't put her off wanting to adopt you.'

Adam gets on insanely well with Ronan's mom. Last week Ronan literally had to drag Adam out of the kitchen to stop Mom rambling on to him about the best methods she'd found to keep slugs and butterflies away from her lettuces. Once they were safely in his bedroom, Ronan apologised, but Adam just said,

'Your mom's cool. I always wanted to learn more about gardening.'

'Fucking nerd,' Ronan had told him without thinking, and then chewed his lip, because he wasn't sure if they were at that stage of their friendship yet. If they were even _at_ a stage of friendship. But Adam just rolled his eyes and chucked his biro at Ronan's head. 

His mom sometimes tries to ask Adam about his own family, but gets no further than Ronan ever has, i.e. establishing that Adam has one. Adam’s very good at turning questions about himself back onto other people, so smoothly that they usually don’t realise how little he's revealed. He doesn't fool Ronan. But if he doesn't want to talk about his life, Ronan isn't going to push him. 

They're discussing the new French teacher, Madame Derouet – who Adam thinks is 'hot as fuck,' apparently – when Adam gets a text. He reads it, then sets down his ginger beer with a clunk.

‘Gotta go home,’ he says, standing up.

Ronan's thrown by the abruptness. ‘Okay. I'll give you a ride.'

'No, thank you. I have lights on my bike.'

Ronan walks him to the door. Adam’s excruciatingly polite as always, thanking him for the drinks and the muffins and the company. He takes some time over his shoes, crouching to tie his laces with perfect precision. He’s always so fiercely in control, Ronan thinks, watching him trundle away on his bike. It must be exhausting.

*

MacKenzie’s Friday poker night starts off incredibly dull, but there’s the one major redeeming feature of free booze, so it gets more fun. In a few hours, Ronan drinks seven straight whiskeys and loses every one of his chips. He throws his hands up and heads to the kitchen for a refill, running into Davies and some other dumbfucks on the way.

‘Aw, you look like you’re about to cry, Lynch,’ Davies says. ‘Triggered again?’

 _‘Triggered_ ,’ echo his friends, like dumb seagulls, and he hears one say, ‘Fucking head-case.’

Ronan yelled at his Health Education teacher a few weeks ago, after the guy had announced to the the class that depression wasn't a real illness, and curing it was just a matter of positive thinking. Ronan's granddad had depression before he died last year; the words had barely come out of the teacher's mouth before Ronan was on his feet and yelling. He received an official principal's warning and is now infamous at Aglionby.

Ronan squares his shoulders and turns to stare Davies down.

‘It’s just a joke, pussy,' Davies says – and then Ronan’s swinging, but before his fist can connect with Davies’ face, there's someone in the way – Adam Parrish, of all people, who Ronan hadn’t even known was here tonight – Ronan tries to push him away, but then through his blistered rage he realises Adam is jagged with his own rage, shouting, ‘What the fuck are you doing, Ronan.’

Ronan jerks awake at 3:36 a.m in his own bedroom. Nothing seems out of the ordinary, until he turns the bedroom light on and realises there is someone asleep on his Persian rug. Whoever it is has no blanket or pillow, is just hunched up in his thin jacket, knees curled to his chest.

Ronan can only remember blurry patches of the night. But he thinks he knows who it is.

He stands up and walks over. 'What – the – fuck,' he says softly. 

Ronan can guess what's happened: Adam was exhausted and cold and didn’t want to walk home, but instead of just asking Ronan if he could sleep in his bed – it's a king, it's not like there's no room – or Declan's bed or something, he decided, because he is an insane person, to sleep curled-up and shivering on the fucking floor. He's learned over five months that Adam has a hardcore issue with asking for things. 

Ronan notices a tremor run through Adam's shoulders, so he takes the comforter off the bed and tosses it irritably over him. The booze is starting to sour in his blood, and he feels too jittery and weird to go back to sleep, so he goes and sits in the windowsill with his headphones on. Clouds are shifting over the moon, changing from dark to translucent. He glances over at Parrish a couple times, before he gets lost in the dark and his usual reveries.

The shadows on the wall mutate into a figure.

Ronan pops his headphones off and turns. Adam's there, sleepily flushed. His cheek’s got crease-marks where it must have pressed against his jacket.

‘Lynch,’ he says hoarsely, not meeting his eyes. 'I didn’t mean to fall asleep.’

‘It’s fine,’ says Ronan.

‘I'll go. Will the front door be locked?’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Ronan says. ‘It’s the middle of winter. And you live fucking miles away. Stay.'

Adam wraps his arms around his chest and squeezes. He doesn’t answer.

‘I have a spare mattress under my bed. Call your parents if they’ll be waiting up.’

Adam says nothing, as usual, at the mention of his parents.

‘Mom'll be stoked,’ Ronan goes on. He's trying to make his voice soothing, because Adam looks a bit like a wild horse about to bolt. ‘Waking up to Adam Parrish, garden enthusiast, most-likely-to-succeed, dream fourth son, at her kitchen table. It'll be like Christmas and her birthday at once.'

Adam bites his lip and shifts his weight.

‘Can’t sleep?’ he says eventually, gesturing at Ronan’s headphones.

‘Nah. Insomniac.' 

‘So's my aunt. She makes this drink to help; I’ll send you the recipe.'

'Like a potion?'

'Sure,' Adam says, lip crooking up a little. ‘It’s just milk and spices.’

‘Can you show me how to make it now?’

Adam twists his mouth. ‘That’s okay. I wouldn’t want to waste your parents’ milk.'

‘Adam. We’re not going to run out of _milk,_ we live on a fucking _farm.’_

But Adam still looks deeply reluctant. 'Won’t your parents wake up if we use the kitchen?’

‘No,’ Ronan says confidently. ‘Declan and I used to play this game on Saturday mornings: each pick a parent and whoever woke them up fastest won. Once I dive-bombed a remote-control airplane straight into Dad’s mouth, mid-snore. Nada.'

'Congratulations,' says Adam.

So that’s how Ronan finds himself sitting at his kitchen table at 3am, watching Adam’s slender hands stir honey and spices into a saucepan of milk.

He’s been spending the last ten minutes thinking how to tell Adam he doesn't mind him staying over whenever, if he wanted. At the last moment, though, he chickens out of being sincere.

'You know, Parrish,’ he says teasingly, ‘if you wanted to have a sleepover with me, you could’ve just asked.’

If it were anyone else, they’d brush it off with a laugh, but of course Adam isn’t anyone else, and he stiffens.

‘Don’t you remember anything from tonight, Lynch?’ His voice has gone all mean.

‘Nah, not really,’ says Ronan loudly, making it clear he’s unashamed. If Adam wants to pick a fight, he's not going to lie down.  _Everyone_ drinks in junior year. Just because Adam would rather live in the 50’s.

Adam says nothing, though, just holds out a mug of the weird milk drink. Ronan reaches out, and Adam looks at him hard for a second. His mouth opens like he’s about to say something. But then he shuts it.

Ronan takes a sip of the spiced milk, frowns, and sets it back down. It tastes complicated and a little bitter; he doesn’t think he likes it much.

*

Ronan and Adam are standing in Alicia Mertens' vast, summery garden on the second Friday of senior year. Thev've been invited here here, along with a hundred others, to celebrate Alicia’s _whatever_ th birthday. Even though Ronan was grumpy about Adam making him come tonight – he doesn't know Alicia Mertens, apart from that she works at Boyd's Body and Paint with Adam, and he would rather be out driving – he can admit it’s a beautiful evening. Starry fairy-lights are twinkling in all the trees, and all the guests are in bright shorts and loose, flowery cotton dresses. And – Adam’s smiling.

He got a phone call today. He won some 'argumentative essay' scholarship. A big one.

Adam doesn’t usually have time for pride. At last year’s awards ceremony he won four prizes, and he looked more and more uncomfortable every time his name was called out. In the year Ronan’s known him, he's learned Adam’s received praise and commendation in the same way a normal person would receive violent insults.

But this scholarship is different. It's something real. It means Adam can drop one of his jobs this year, spend more time on study.

Adam showed up at Ronan’s house after school with a new expression – a lightness in his eyes – that made Ronan badly want to kiss him. That impulse was nothing new, though, and instead he said, grumpily,

'There are leaves in your hair, Parrish.'

Adam didn't even hear him. He waved to Ronan's dad – who was currently on a mission to polish every pair of boots in the house – and practically yanked Ronan up the stairs to his room.

‘I almost missed the call,’ Adam said, as he was looping the tie Ronan had lent him around his shirt collar, knotting it with deft, slender fingers. Ronan was lying on the bed, pretending not to watch him. ‘I was on my bike. I pulled over, and it was so windy, I almost couldn’t hear them. I had to sprint into the forest; they must’ve heard me panting and been like, what the fuck?'

Ronan didn’t say anything. He was unused to Adam being this chatty, and he didn’t want to do anything to ruin it.

But as it turned out, he hadn't needed to worry. Adam's good mood has stuck around all evening; he's been clamped to Ronan's side like a limpet, alternating between talking and staring dreamily at the fairy-lights and the slight breeze ruffling the birch trees. A couple people have come up to chat to them at the party but Adam has seemed too distracted to pay much attention to them; the second they're gone he's talking again, deliberating the disadvantages and advantages of dropping various jobs, or wondering if he needs to write a thank-you letter.

‘Sorry,’ Adam says, breaking off mid-way through going over the call blow-by-blow. ‘I’m talking too much, aren’t I.’

Ronan frowns. ‘No.’

He likes it when Adam talks.

Ronan goes off to get them both another round – lager for him, lemonade for Adam – but when he comes back, there’s this – girl here. Blonde, wavy-haired, in a pink-and-white checked pinafore. Adam’s always been a good-looking guy, but he usually has this hard quality to his eyes, and it intimidates people. Tonight, of course, his eyes look different.

‘Don’t you come into my parents’ bakery sometimes?’ the girl is saying. ‘ _Yeast of Eden?_ ’

‘Yes,’ says Adam, smiling politely, and the girl giggles, for no apparent reason.

'Quiche boy, right?’ she says.

Adam twists his mouth. ‘Flattering nickname.’

 _‘Cute_ quiche boy,’ she corrects, and Adam frowns. Adam’s always thrown when anyone compliments him.

But then – he smiles. Ronan can tell, just from the dimple that shows, that Adam likes this girl. Fine. Good for him, and her. Adam doesn’t need a cock-block, so Ronan’ll fuck off for a bit.

‘Why do you even _like_  quiches so much?’ Ronan can hear the girl saying teasingly, as he slinks over to the drinks table. He accidentally bumps into a slow-dancing couple and doesn’t apologise, dumps the lemonade and snatches a second beer, then trudges around the side of the house.

He emerges into a surprisingly grotty courtyard, with patchy grass and garbage bins. It’s made a little less gross by the glittering early-evening light filtering through a lone tree: it's gold, caramelizing into orange. Ronan sits down hard next to the tree, tips his head back against the trunk and downs the rest of his beer in one. He cracks open the next without pause.

He’s nearly finished that when he hears a movement. He turns to see someone partly silhouetted in the bright rays of the vanishing sun. It's Adam. Ronan carefully keeps his face impassive.

‘What're you doing here, you weirdo?’ says Adam. Ronan shrugs, doesn’t say anything, just drains the dregs of his beer. Adam drops down next to him; his shoulder presses lightly against Ronan's.

‘Where’s baker chick?’ says Ronan.

‘Wanted to hang out with you,’ Adam says. ‘Besides, she was making me uncomfortable.’

He leans into Ronan’s shoulder more and Ronan can feel his warmth through the two thin layers of cotton. Adam always seems a little warmer than Ronan, no matter the weather; he notices it whenever Adam's hands brush his accidentally.

‘Don’t worry, Parrish,’ Ronan says. ‘I won’t let any pretty girls take advantage of you.’

It's supposed to be a joke, but he realises too late it sounds sexist. But Adam just says, softly, ‘Thanks,’ and then, with no warning at all, wraps an arm around Ronan, sighs, and shoves his face into Ronan’s collarbone. His warm breath tickles Ronan’s neck.

If there’s one thing Ronan’s learned about Adam Parrish, it is how much he hates touching and being touched. Even though he’s been friends with Ronan for a year, he will sometimes flinch if Ronan so much as taps him on the shoulder. He’s definitely never buried his face in Ronan’s neck before.

‘I thought you didn’t drink,’ he says scornfully.

Adam gives a little huff of laughter that Ronan feels on his skin, and doesn't deign to answer. It’s getting cold now, and the sun’s nearly gone. Ronan feels little goosebumps prick up all over his hairline and arms and legs.

_This doesn’t mean anything, dumbfuck._

After a while Adam looks up at him.

‘I’m happy,’ he says, like it’s a surprise.

Ronan looks back at him, his long, dust-coloured eyelashes, his slightly parted lips.

_Just kiss him._

‘I know,’ says Ronan, looking away again. He hesitates, then says, ‘I like it when you’re happy.’

There’s a silence. Adam’s head doesn’t move from his shoulder. 

‘I was thinking,’ Adam says eventually. ‘I’m lucky. That we’re friends.’

 _Friends_ , Ronan thinks, and the word shakes him back to earth. He’s supposed to be Adam’s fucking _friend._

‘You could do way better,’ Ronan says. Adam laughs, and finally lifts his head.

They go inside when it gets too cold to say in the courtyard, and then, for a long time it’s just the two of them sitting at the Mertens’ huge dining table while other people hop in and out to grab slices of cooling pizza or glasses of water.

Ronan fixes Adam a peanut butter sandwich with tons of margarine, which, _disgustingly_ , is Adam’s favourite sandwich filling.

'You might feel it tomorrow. This'll help.' Adam narrows his eyes like he's about to argue the point, but then sighs and just takes the plate.

‘It’s late,’ says Adam eventually. It’s not that late, barely ten, but most people have already gone home. Alicia Mertens' seventeenth wasn’t exactly a rager.

‘You could crash at mine,’ says Ronan, half-heartedly. He knows what Adam’s answer will be. Ever since that one strange night, Adam has consistently departed Ronan’s place at eight p.m. on the fucking dot. 'Won't your parents be able to tell you've been drinking?' he adds. (Ronan's mom and dad can always tell if he's had even a drop.)

(If Adam did crash at Ronan’s, Ronan wouldn’t – be weird, or anything, like – watch Adam sleep or anything like that. It’s just  – for some reason, he doesn’t like the idea of Adam going back home if he's been drinking.)

'They won't care,’ says Adam, and as expected, there’s a flash of something in his eyes. He won't even let Ronan's dad give him a lift home when they leave, insists on biking. He's still weird about living in a trailer, even though Ronan's been round a couple times now, and doesn't think it's anything to be ashamed of. 

That night, Ronan lies awake in bed with his hot, tangled thoughts, glaring at the fucking security light that always picks up on the chickens' night-time squabbles and beams right through his curtains.

He wishes he was able to believe it meant something, that Adam came to find him; that he touched him, when he was drunk. But the truth is: he knows what Adam's like around people he's into. If he really likes a girl, he can’t even look her in the eye. Adam touching him probably means he's never even thought of Ronan in that way.

Ronan's seen all the signs: Adam's intent observation of cheerleading routines, his instant acquiescence whenever a pretty girl has a request, his reddening ears if he’s ever confronted with a dark-haired girl with pale eyes. He's straight. Ronan wishes he didn’t know Adam’s _exact_ fucking type, well enough to predict his film-star crushes.

But Ronan is tired of thinking about girls. He can still feel Adam’s face pressed against his neck, like an imprint. He thinks about that instead.

*

Ronan first starts hanging around with Richard Gansey III because he reminds him a little of Adam. Physically, they are nothing alike. Adam’s features are delicate, while Gansey would be the first result in a stock photo search for ‘handsome.’

But, within five minutes of his first conversation with Gansey in History class – during which Gansey compliments Ronan for five full minutes on his 'strikingly dynamic' Alexander the Great speech – Ronan cannot shake the strong feeling that there is something similar about how Gansey and Adam both _are_ in the world _._

Later he’ll understand that Gansey and Adam are similar like dolphins and sharks are similar. They've evolved into the same shape, but that’s where the resemblance ends.

But at the time, he thinks about how Gansey, like Adam, seems somehow – more intensely charged than everyone else in the room. And how Gansey, like Adam, uses a shield of politeness to cover up his secrets.

After the first afternoon they spend together on their Cold War project, Ronan has decided that he likes Gansey. It’s an odd feeling, because he doesn’t like people, as a rule. And then Gansey invites him over to watch Dr Strangelove, and it turns out Gansey lives in a goddamn converted warehouse, all by himself – and it’s like a fucking museum for the insane in there – and that’s weird enough for Ronan to decide he wants to be friends.

*

Adam doesn’t take well to Gansey.

It takes Ronan by surprise. He was sure they would hit it off. Like Adam, Gansey is intellectual, whip-quick. They both get fucking hard-ons for heavy old books full of shit that no one else cares about. And Ronan likes both of them a lot, which in his opinion is the surest guarantee of all.

Adam doesn’t agree. He’s like a bristling cat the whole time they’re at Gansey’s place.

‘What’s your deal?’ says Ronan, irritably, on the ride to Adam’s neighborhood. He wasn’t expecting, like, The Breakfast Club, but Adam could’ve at least tried.

Gansey tried with Adam, obviously, strenuously. So hard he almost got a hernia.

‘You didn’t tell me he was....’ Adam trails off.

‘He was what?’ says Ronan.

‘Rich.’

Ronan stares at him. The bile in his voice is obvious.

They don’t talk much of the way home, and Ronan doesn’t bring up Gansey again, but he often thinks, later, about the way Adam said, ‘ _Rich,’_ and about what Adam thought, the first time he visited the Barns.

*

Adam comes to school one day with a cut on his cheek and a secret. The secret is making glow on the inside, and smile when he thinks no one is looking. 

The cut is one thing, but then, in English, Ronan notices Adam's hand is shaking. So badly that at one point, he has to put his pen down and stop taking notes for a while.

'What happened?' Ronan demands as they're walking out of class. 'What did you do to your arm?'

'Nothing.' Adam subtly shakes his sleeve down to cover his wrist.

Adam's always been frustratingly careless with his own safety. He has a penchant for climbing trees and exploring abandoned buildings – it's recently infected Ronan, too. The best place they've discovered is a marked-for-demolition parking building. Adam's nicknamed it the Great Hall, which Ronan thought was a cool name until Adam explained it was a Harry Potter reference. They've been hanging out in there a lot lately, drawing with Sharpies on the floor and talking about their futures: where they'll go, who they'll be.

It's not unusual for Adam to show up to school with mild injuries as a result of his solo misadventures. Ronan's irritably had to tell him, several times, that he needs be more careful. 

Adam always shoots back that Ronan's a hypocrite. 'You drive like a getaway driver on crack.' But it’s not like Ronan’s ever crashed badly, and besides, he’s not the one with the eye-achingly bright future.

Ronan says now, 'Bullshit nothing happened. Don't lie to me, Parrish,' and Adam sighs.

'I heard a cat meowing on the way home yesterday. It seemed to be coming from this storm drain, so I went down to see if I could find it.'

‘You went down a storm drain?’ Ronan says through clenched teeth. He resists the mad urge to take Adam's wrist and inspect it for damage. 'You should see a doctor. It shouldn't be shaking that bad.'

‘It’s no big deal,’ Adam says, brow furrowing. He never gets why his injuries upset Ronan, the idiot. Then his lip quirks. ‘Why don’t you come with me next time? Be my foul-mouthed guardian angel.'

It’s true Adam’s never been badly hurt when Ronan's there, partly because Ronan swears wildly at him if he thinks Adam's doing something remotely dangerous. 

‘Not fucking likely,’ says Ronan, scowling. ‘Why the fuck would I want to go down a storm drain?’

But Adam just smiles to himself like that’s the funniest thing he ever heard. Ronan stares at the almost-healed cut on Adam’s cheek and feels even angrier, and he doesn’t know why.

*

Ronan’s been spending more and more time with Gansey lately, kicking around his vast home, or going with him on long car drives to obtain artefacts or chase leads for his various obsessions. Gansey's great passion is unsolved historical mysteries: at the moment it's the Voynich manuscript, and he's chasing up every person in the United States who claims to know what it means. Gansey’s always bursting with ideas and thoughts and dreams, and he makes Ronan feel – he doesn’t know. A sense of possibility, maybe.

He knows Adam and Gansey would get on, if Adam would just give the guy a chance. But they’re only in one class together this year, and they sit at opposite ends of the room. And Adam keeps on wriggling out of hanging out if he knows Gansey will be there. 

‘What’s your problem with Gansey?’ Ronan says, after Adam says he can't make it to Gansey's film night on Saturday. They're in the Great Hall; Ronan's stopped chucking rocks at the wall to watch Adam scrawl aimlessly with a marker on the concrete floor, loop-de-loop-de-loop.

Adam sighs. ‘It's hard to explain. Our worlds are too different.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘He’s bubble-wrapped,’ says Adam. ‘He has no idea about anything.'

‘He understands more than you’d think.'

Adam shakes his head, turns away. Ronan sees his shoulders tighten. ‘You don’t get it. He thinks he’s above me.’

‘No one’s above you.'

But Adam's still looking away. ‘I _am_ busy Saturday.'

‘Not studying again,’ says Ronan gloomily.

‘No,’ says Adam. ‘Not studying. I’m –’ he hesitates – ‘seeing a friend.’

Ronan is sure this is lie of one kind or another, but he leaves it alone. He’s trying not to worry about Adam’s strange elusiveness lately. He and Adam have had rough patches before, but they always come right. He’ll tell Ronan what’s going on eventually.

*

The cut on Adam's cheek is gone by the next party they go to, and it’s a doozy. It’s a fucking pool party in mid-winter, held by none other than Tad Carruthers.

Ronan’s always thought of Carruthers as like a muscly, ultra-privileged golden retriever, and found him merely vaguely annoying. Then he found out Carruthers had his chauffeur pick Adam up while he was, in typical Adam style, biking home in a thunderstorm. Now he's taken to hanging around Adam sometimes, making inane comments like, 'Maths was so hard today, wasn't it?' and 'I like when they serve tater tots at lunch.' Ronan grudgingly tolerates Carruthers' presence, because Adam seems not to mind him too much, and also it's funny how pissed off Adam gets when Carruthers ruffles his hair.

Carruthers' mansion is is tonight filled with groaning buffet tables and waiters in suits that make them look like penguins. There's also this one lady with a harp, with a hat that looks like a gigantic daisy. A waiter greets them at the door and leads them to the indoor pool room.

It’s decidedly surreal. Half of the people are dressed up and the other half are in their bathing suits, either lounging on deckchairs or floating in the pool, which is emanating soft clouds of steam and a strong smell of chlorine.

He and Adam are both clearly underdressed, having both worn trunks underneath their clothes, a fashion decision that only really works with jeans. Ronan exchanges an uncomfortable look with him, and notices Adam’s cheeks are already slightly flushed from the weird, muggy warmth of the room.

‘My bros,’ says Carruthers, popping up to hand them a beer each, unable to resist mussing Adam’s hair into disarray before strolling away. Adam scowls at Carruthers' back. He looks like he's been electrocuted, and it would be insane to find that attractive. Ronan downs his beer quickly.

‘Watch it, Lynch,’ says Adam, eyeing Ronan’s empty bottle. ‘I’m not nannying you tonight.’

‘I’m sober,’ says Ronan. ‘Sober as a rock.’

‘That’s not a thing people say.’

‘ _Sober! Sober as a rock,’_ Ronan sings. ‘Don’t you know that song?’

Adam rolls his eyes, looks around the room. ‘Alcohol plus deep water seems like a winning combination.'

'Kill-joy.'

Adam makes like he's going to push Ronan in the pool; Ronan dodges, a reflex from years of being shoved into ponds by Declan, before he realises he's just feinting. 'Dick,' he says. A chunk of Adam's hair has tumbled over his forehead, and he runs his hands through it, restoring a vague order. Ronan watches, and has the sudden urge to grip Adam’s wrist and tug him straight over the edge, down into the cool water.

Like magic, Adam clicks his tongue and says, ‘So. Let’s go swimming.’

'Wha–?'

But Adam’s already kicking off his shoes. 

‘Come on,’ Adam says, undoing shirt buttons rapidly. Ronan quickly busies himself with his shoelaces.

They leave their clothes in a heap by the deck chairs. Ronan’s carefully looking at his feet, the pool, anywhere but at the gleam of Adam’s bare shoulders.

Then Adam sprints suddenly ahead, and Ronan pauses, just for a second, to take in the the faint freckles on his shoulders, the muscles moving in his back as he tenses and jumps. Then water blooms up around him.

Ronan jumps himself, feels the shocking cold of the water, then the sweet encompassing quiet. Rises to see Adam looking at him, smiling, treading water, his eyelashes in wet spikes.

‘Race you,’ says Ronan, gesturing to the shallow end of the pool.

‘I only know dog paddle,’ says Adam.

‘Dog paddle race you.’

Ronan’s not trying that hard at first, but then he realises Adam’s winning way too easily. He strives to catch up, but it’s too late. Adam crows triumphantly and stands, shaking water out of his hair. It's so shallow the the water only comes up to his waist. He has a scattering of freckles on his chest, too.

‘Didn’t you have private lessons and everything?’ he says.

Ronan takes a playful swing at him, which Adam dodges.

Then Adam smiles dangerously, and dives straight at him. Ronan twists out of the way and snorts as Adam plunges inelegantly into the water, but then he's back on his feet and getting a run-up for another attack; before he can pounce, Ronan launches forward and tackles him. They sink to the pool floor.

Ronan's always loved play-fighting, the way it's almost like a dance.

He manages to keep Adam down for about three seconds, before Adam slithers out of his hold and grips him tight around the waist. 

‘Fuck,’ he burbles, feeling Adam’s smooth arms tight around him and a suddenly unbearable heat. ‘Parrish, wait.’ Bubbles float up from his mouth.

But Adam can’t hear him.

‘ _Let go.’_

That unwanted warmth is spreading horribly, and Adam's chest is pressed right up against – Ronan kicks out in sheer desperation. He feels his foot connect to something with a crunch.

‘No,’ he garbles through the water, and he's twisting towards the surface, smearing the water out of his eyes to see Adam clutching his jaw. _No, no, no, please. Please._  For a terrible second, he thinks he hears Adam sob. But then Adam takes his hand away and he’s laughing, his eyes bright.

‘You’re so ticklish.'

‘Are you okay?’ Ronan pants. That kick had felt incredibly hard. He kicks over to him. ‘Lemme see.’

‘I’m fine,’ says Adam, rolling his eyes, but he lets Ronan cup his hands gently around his chin and look. His jaw looks fine, the same as ever. ‘I’ve had harder kicks from babies.’

‘Stop fighting babies,’ says Ronan.

It’s a stupid joke, but Adam’s laughing anyway, and everything suddenly seems fine. It's fine, that Adam's been distant and weird the past few weeks, it's fine that he apparently can't handle Adam touching him for longer than a second any more. They’re gonna stay friends – he can make Adam laugh – it’s fine. 

Then Adam says, 'Oh.' He's looking over Ronan's shoulder. He extricates himself quickly from Ronan like Ronan’s some unwanted item of clothing. ‘Hello,’ he says to someone, then glances suddenly at Ronan, looking almost nervous.

Ronan turns to see who it is. It’s some tiny, dark-haired girl with weird, bright blue and green scraps of fabric plaited into her hair. The hair’s probably substitute for a personality. _Don’t bother_ , Ronan thinks ferociously up at her. _He won’t be fucking interested._

As if she’s heard his thoughts, the girl turns and smiles down at him.

‘Hey,’ she says. ‘You must be – Ronan? I’m Blue. Adam’s girlfriend.’

*

‘Gansey?’

The warehouse is quiet, dust settling in spirals from where he’s disturbed it with the door. Gansey really needs to clean up in here. It’s silent, but feels somehow warm: Ronan's sure Gansey’s here somewhere. He tosses the spare key on the kitchen counter, kicks off his shoes, and wanders in.

‘It’s Ronan,’ he calls. No response. Gansey’s managed to pick up about a dozen new artefacts since Ronan was last here a week ago, including a spinning wheel and what looks like a printing press.

Ronan finally finds Gansey curled up underneath his desk. He’s in a nest of what looks like sheets of music, yellowed and curling at the edges. His glasses have fallen upwards to rest in his hair, and he’s clutching an orange-and-green porcelain rooster to his chest.

‘Oi,’ Ronan says, nudging him fondly with his toe. Gansey jerks awake.

‘Oh, hello there,’ he says, in his most obnoxiously posh voice. ‘What time is it?’

‘Four in the afternoon, man.' He’s not in the least surprised at this point. He once found Gansey asleep in the bath with half a bagel in his mouth.

‘I was trying to crack the code hidden in this sheet music,’ Gansey says slowly, cricking his neck. ‘Or I thought it was a code. Maybe it’s just... sheet music.’

He blinks a few times, then notices the porcelain rooster in his arms.

‘What’s this?’ he asks Ronan, bewildered. Ronan sighs, takes the rooster and puts it on the desk, then kneels to helps Gansey sort the papers out.

‘Weren’t you and Adam doing something this afternoon?’

Ronan's hand goes to his pocket. Inside is the note he found taped to his locker.

‘No,’ he says.

Gansey looks at him questioningly.

‘He’s with _Blue.’_ Ronan knows he sounds acidic and he doesn't care.

‘Hm,’ says Gansey, briefly looking like a person who has heard more about the budding relationship between some guy he barely knows and some girl he’s never met than he ever wanted to.  ‘Getting serious, then?’

Ronan has been denying this very fact to himself steadily for the last month, even as Adam’s been mentioning Blue’s name with increasing enthusiasm and frequency and has become unable to focus for longer than ten minutes on anything that wasn’t his phone, and more and more of his free time has become parcelled up. All because of some damn waitress he met at a pizza place.

But this, what happened today, Ronan can’t ignore.

The note, in Adam's neat, tiny handwriting, had read:  _Hey Ronan, I’m sorry but Blue’s a bit upset today because of a bad grade so I’m going to see her. Can we reschedule? Adam_

Ronan sets the papers he's been collecting on the ground. ‘He left me a _note,_ ’ he sneers. The wording hurt. _Can we reschedule,_ like Ronan’s a work colleague.

Gansey's eyes go gentle. 'He's still your friend, Ronan, he's just - a little caught up with the new relationship.'

This, Ronan thinks, is a heroic attempt by Gansey to empathise with Adam, since Adam has been at best, indifferent, and at worst, openly hostile to Gansey. It’s been a little like watching a puppy trying to make friends with a bad-tempered cat.

‘You should see them together,’ Ronan says disdainfully. ‘All fucking _young and in love.’_

Gansey looks at him hard for a few seconds, then abruptly and unexpectedly gets to his feet.

‘Would you like to take some tea in the sun room?’ he says, in his Perfect 1920’s Host voice, and Ronan snorts.

‘Nah. I’ll head off soon.’

‘How about a juice in the kitchen?’ Gansey persists, and he looks so pleading that Ronan relents.

Ronan follows Gansey down the hall. When he gets to the kitchen door, Gansey stops.

‘So, you’re into Adam.’

Ronan goes still, and Gansey turns to face him, blocking the doorway. ‘What do you –’

‘Come on, Ronan,’ says Gansey, placing his arm on the door-jamb with a flourish. ‘I notice these things. I’m an anthropologist.’

Ronan almost injures his eyeballs with how hard he rolls them, but Gansey’s still waiting for an answer.

‘What _ever_. He’s not – totally – gross.'

Gansey gives a superior little nod, but still doesn’t move out of the doorway, like he’s waiting for something more from Ronan. When Ronan glares and gives him nothing, Gansey says:

‘I guess I’m kind of surprised.’

‘What do you mean?’ says Ronan, tensing.

‘You and Adam. I don’t quite... see it.'

Ronan grits his teeth and waits for him to explain _that_ fucking prize of a statement.

‘You’re fairly... dichotomous,’ Gansey ploughs on. ‘You must see that. It’s sort of like…’ He pauses to consider. 'You're hot and he's cold.'

Ronan makes a sound that’s vaguely like a snarl. ‘Adam’s not _cold._ ’

‘I didn’t mean it like that! It was the first dichotomy I thought of.'

But Ronan’s done talking about this. He pushes past Gansey and walks into the kitchen, opens the glass cabinet with far more force than is necessary, and grabs two crystal glasses.

Gansey hurriedly takes the crystal glasses from Ronan’s hands and sets them delicately on the bench.

‘Ronan –’ he says, and pauses. ‘I’m sorry if I was offensive. I know it’s – it must be hard to talk about.'

Ronan unscrews the juice carton and haphazardly fills the first glass, then clean misses the second. Juice puddles rapidly over the bench. Gansey sighs and goes to get a cloth.

‘I really like him,’ Ronan says, braver while his back’s turned.

Gansey comes over and starts mopping up juice. ‘For how long?’

‘Not that long,’ Ronan lies - ashamed, for some reason, that it's been over a year.

Gansey takes a thoughtful sip of juice.

‘What if you told him?’

‘No,’ Ronan growls. 

‘Okay, okay,’ Gansey says. 'I know it must be awful, with him and Blue.’

Ronan stares at the cloudy orange juice in his own glass for a few seconds, then downs it in one go.

‘I think I’ll take off,’ he says, setting it on the bench and wiping his mouth roughly. ‘Thanks. For the juice.’

‘Oh,’ says Gansey. ‘Any time. Always seem to buy far too much for one person.’

Ronan’s halfway into the hall when Gansey clears his throat.

‘I’m here to listen, by the way,’ he says. ‘The stuff with Adam. You could – talk about it. With me.’

The truth is, Ronan’s feelings about Adam Parrish feel sometimes like a sickness that has infected every inch of his body.

Ronan has dreams about Adam almost every night, lately. Sometimes it's Adam soft on his back in his bed, throat tipped up to the light; sometimes Adam's got Ronan against a wall, his nails digging into Ronan’s wrists. Sometimes it's Adam running his hands through Ronan's short hair, over and over. A couple nights ago, Adam showed up in his childhood, playing hide-and-seek with him and Matthew. They could hear Matthew counting: ‘Twenty-eight, twenty-nine…’ as Adam pulled him to hide behind an oak tree, fingers clamped around his wrist. ‘Stay quiet, Ronan.’

‘Thanks,’ Ronan tells Gansey. 'But it's really nothing.'

When he’s alone in the hall, he reaches into his pocket, grabs Adam’s note, and crumples it in his fist.

*

Nothing about this expedition is shaping up to be enjoyable. Ronan’s driving the BMW; Gansey's riding shotgun. Ronan's deliberately not looking in the centre rearview mirror, but is still aware of how Adam and Blue’s hands are intertwined in the back seat. And, despite the crackly hum of the engine, he can still hear whenever Adam leans over to whisper things in Blue's ear. He can't play his music, because Blue said he should turn it off so they could 'talk,' and then Adam and Gansey both fucking backed her up.

Ronan is glad Gansey’s here, at least. Gansey is a firm, stabilising presence, and, as it turns out, has an excellent poker face. It doesn’t slip a millimetre when Adam and Blue start making out in the back and Ronan nearly swerves into a passing lorry.

Adam’s been pressuring Ronan to hang out with Blue for the last couple weeks, which, Ronan thinks, is completely uncalled for.

‘You’ve barely been dating two months.'

‘But I think you’d get on.'

When Ronan complained to Gansey about this, Gansey suggested that they do something as a group.

‘That way you don’t have to third-wheel,’ Gansey said. ‘We’ll be a four-wheel drive.’

One of the few benefits of Adam dating Blue was that he seemed to have forgotten he was supposed to hate Gansey. He was still cool to him, but relatively tolerant; so Ronan cautiously agreed a group hang-out might work. Gansey suggested climbing a 'little waterfall' half an hour out of Henrietta.

‘I know the owner of the property; she's rigged it with ropes and signs to make it easier. It's good, honest fun. Gets the heart-rate up.’

Ronan half-hoped that Blue wouldn’t be up for it, but Adam said instantly he knew she would be.

When she showed up with Adam at Gansey's place, she was, annoyingly, much prettier than he remembered. Her dark eyes glowed amber in the bright sun, and the weird fabric things in her hair were gone: it just looked like a birds’ nest she'd somehow attached to her head. She was only barely touching Adam, her shoulder grazing his. But still touching him.

Adam was just in his old, faded _Back to the Future_ t-shirt and jeans, although he had some kind of product in his hair for a change. They all stood in Gansey's foyer and talked for a while. Ronan thought there was something a little off about Adam, although he couldn't put his finger on it. He kept a quiet eye on him, and noticed Adam's poorly disguised wince when Blue dive-bombed him with for a hug. Ronan would bet money he'd hurt himself again.

‘Is the climb hard?’ Adam asks as they’re waiting at an intersection, and there’s a hint of apprehension in his voice. He’s probably just being gallant on behalf of Blue, but Ronan’s suspicion heightens still further.

‘Oh, it can be tricky in places,’ says Gansey airily, ‘but we’ll manage, we’re all young and fit.’

Ronan suspects ‘tricky in places’ means ‘a literal death-trap’ in Gansey-speak.

Ronan is staunchly polite to Blue, and keeps an eye on Adam and Gansey. But the fault-line that does appear in the group is one he never saw coming. It starts when Gansey tries to buy them all these weird-ass 'gourmet' sandwiches with blue cheese and cranberry sauce. Blue pitches a fit, which Gansey, predictably, misunderstands.

‘It’s an acquired taste, gorgonzola,’ he’s explaining to her, wide-eyed, hugging the four sandwiches to his chest. ‘But once you get used to it, you'll never go back. I can eat whole wheels in one sitting, these days.'

'Sexy,' says Ronan.

'Seriously, Blue, you have to try these sandwiches, they’re heaven-sent. They’ll convert you.'

Blue, all spiky, says, ‘No, I meant that I’ve brought my own lunch.’

Adam’s hand drifts uncertainly out to rest on the small of her back. She bristles and sidles away from him. Ronan, guessing how much effort that simple touch would’ve cost Adam, feels a flare of anger.

‘But it’s not a big deal,’ Gansey says, frowning, ‘I can easily –’

‘She said she brought her own,’ Adam interrupts, coolly, while Ronan’s still trying to shove his irritation at Blue’s innocent gesture down to a manageable level.

Gansey, crestfallen, goes to put the sandwiches back. Ronan goes after him.

‘I was just trying to–’

‘I know, man,’ says Ronan. He could defend Blue. He’s heard what Adam has to say about this kind of thing, more than a few times. But for whatever reason, he elects not to speak up.

Gansey unfolds an enormous map for the last part of the journey, and directs Ronan down a muddy, wildly uneven road.

'Here we are,' he announces, when they reach a rickety wooden gate. They then have to traipse over an over-grown path, with shit-tons of stinging nettle, with the roaring sound of water getting louder and louder, until they emerge at a clearing. And there's the waterfall, splashing down over a vast, sheer rock-face into a dark pool. There's a slimy-looking rope hanging just to the side of where the water's plunging; above it, a rocky platform and a second rope, leading up and over the top of the rock-face.

Gansey immediately puts his foot in it a second time.

‘It's about an hour's climb up. We'll emerge onto the road, and it'll be another hour's easy walk back to the car. I’ll lead the way,’ he tells the group over the crash of the water. ‘This first stretch might be a bit challenging for some.’

His eyes rest very obviously on Blue. Ronan, inwardly, groans.

‘Oh, fuck you,’ says Blue, and instantly shoves past him,grips the rope, and launches herself up the rock. She moves fast, like a small, crazy-haired monkey.

‘Wait!’ calls Gansey, scrambling after her. ‘Don’t – Jesus Christ, there are slips!’

Ronan’s left standing on the ground with Adam, who’s smiling up after Blue like she’s hung the stars in the sky, probably because she just said ‘fuck you’ to Gansey.

‘Go on, then,’ Ronan says abruptly, gesturing. If Adam really is hurt, then Ronan wants to keep a close eye on him.

‘Oh, no, you first,’ says Adam politely. God, how Ronan hates that politeness. 

'I saw how bad you winced when Blue hugged you,' he says.

'What?' Adam says, voice gone mean. 'What the hell are you talking about?'

'You're hurt again, aren't you?'

 _'What?'_  says Adam, and he looks so scathingly incredulous that Ronan realises he must have got it wrong. 'I'm fine, you're imagining things. Just _go_ , Ronan.'

‘Fine,’ Ronan bites out, embarrassed, and grabs the grimy rope, squinting upwards. Gansey and Blue have already vanished out of sight.

He's just pulled himself onto the rocky platform when he hears a half-muffled cry. Adam’s standing on the ground; he's got one hand holding the rope, the other clutching his stomach.

‘All right?’ Ronan shouts urgently.

‘Yes,’ Adam calls. He's very still. ‘Go on, I’ll catch you up.’

Turns out, it’s a lot harder to climb down a sheer rock-face than up. As Ronan scrambles down, hands slithering over the rope, he can hear Adam demanding, with increasing anger, what the _fuck_  Ronan thinks he’s doing. He's doing okay, until he loses his grip of the rope when he’s nearly at the bottom. Finding no purchase on the rockface, he slides violently downwards, scraping his stomach.

'Shit,' he says, pulling his t-shirt up to inspect the damage.

‘Ronan,’ says Adam, now cold as ice, ‘you fucking idiot, you’re bleeding.’

It’s nothing that requires immediate hospital attention. He tugs the t-shirt down and turns his attention to Adam.

‘What’s the matter? I heard you shout.'

‘Nothing,’ says Adam, meeting Ronan’s gaze square-on.

They stand there, in a stony impasse. But Ronan’s not going to let it go, not this time. 

‘I hurt myself yesterday,’ says Adam eventually. ‘Just a bruise. Not a big deal.’

And Ronan's mind is racing, all of a sudden. He's covering it up, like he has before. 

‘Let’s see it, then.’

He wouldn’t have said it so harshly if he weren’t feeling so oddly off-balance with fear.

_He's been lying to me about getting hurt._

But Adam doesn’t move.

‘Fine,’ says Ronan, voice tight. ‘How’d you do it?’

Ronan can _see_ Adam scrambling to come up with an explanation.

_You're hiding something._

‘Storm drain again?’ Ronan offers, and his voice sounds unlike his own.

‘Yeah,’ says Adam, quickly. ‘Need to be more careful.’

‘You know, you’ll have to take me to see this storm drain sometime,’ says Ronan, voice shaking. ‘This _fucking_ storm drain.’

‘Ronan,’ says Adam. ‘Jesus, it’s not that big a deal.’

‘Show me the bruise, then,’ Ronan says. His voice is still shaking; he’s not bothering to try stop it.

'Fine.'

And Adam, rolling his eyes to show Ronan how ridiculous he is, lifts up his t-shirt. There’s a blotchy stain over his stomach and ribs, like a dark purple and yellow continent.

Ronan makes an inhuman sound. Adam lets the t-shirt drop, and they stare at one another. Adam looks like he wishes he could go back and erase the last ten seconds.

Every nerve in Ronan's body is screaming that there is something incredibly wrong. His mind's churning over all the injuries Adam's ever had, all the excuses he's ever given. How could he have been so blind?

 _Is he hurting himself?_   _Or is someone else hurting him?_

He thinks suddenly of Adam's father, who he's only met once, and the way his blank, dull eyes latched onto Ronan's and didn't blink.

‘Let’s keep going,’ says Adam, in a shaky, forced-casual voice. ‘They’ll be waiting.’

Ronan doesn’t move.

He’s thinking of how Adam cried out. If it were anyone else he’d be incredulous that they were even attempting to climb this fucking thing with a bruise like that. But this, after all, is Adam Parrish, who last year came top in History despite being called in to cover an all-night shift right before the final exam.

(Afterwards, he came over to watch _Jurassic Park_ at Ronan’s place and fell asleep during the opening credits. He had a plate of ketchup-covered fries, and they tipped out of his hand and spilled all over Ronan’s pillow. Ronan didn’t give a shit, didn’t even move to pick them up. He didn't want to disturb Adam; lately he'd been sleeping badly).

There are words pushing at Ronan’s lips, frantic, pleading words, but he knows Adam well enough now to know that even a single one of those might push him away.

So when he speaks, he takes Adam’s lead and tries for casual.

‘Fuck the waterfall, I can’t be arsed.’ His voice is, of course, still shaking; he pretends it’s not. ‘Hey, I could show you how to drive a stick, if you want.’

But Adam’s hand is still resting stubbornly on the rock. Ronan can see the fierce, lonely isolation in him, the utter refusal to be drawn.

‘Whatever,’ Ronan says, finally, sullen. ‘Do what the hell you want, Parrish. I’m not fucking going up there, though.’

He means it. Fuck this whole day. He trudges away.

He’s sitting in the car, staring blankly at the waves of wind shivering through the wheatfields, when he hears the passenger door open.

‘Ronan?’ 

‘Hey,’ he says to Adam, awash with unexpected relief. Adam doesn’t look pleased to be here, but at least he’s here.

They sit side-by-side in silence for a while. Ronan turns on the radio, and some pop song with lots of _oo-oo-ooh_ ing fills the car. They listen in silence until the ads blare on, and Ronan turns the volume right down.

‘It’s not your problem,’ Adam says into the fresh quiet.

‘I know,’ says Ronan.

‘It’s something I have to handle myself. So can we just – forget about it.’ It doesn’t sound like a question.

Ronan’s silent for a long time, glaring balefully at the dashboard. He's not going to give Adam an answer.

‘So,’ says Adam in a more normal voice. ‘Did you still want to show me how to drive a stick?’

They don’t talk about anything but driving for the next half hour. Once Ronan has to put a hand over Adam’s, to show him the right way to get the car into reverse.

Adam gets the hang of it very quickly, which is no surprise. He drives them around to the top of the waterfall, doing everything perfectly until he tries to change into third, resulting in a brilliantly long series of bunny-hops. Ronan snorts and Adam says, 'Fuck you,' but not in a bad way.

Maybe he's got it wrong, Ronan tells himself. Surely Adam isn't being _abused._ That kind of stuff only happens in violent, rough neighborhoods, not in quiet, little Henrietta.

Blue and Gansey emerge from the forest. Blue’s in front, arms crossed and her chin raised; Gansey's trailing behind her, hanging his head. His t-shirt has a huge rip in it.

Blue wrenches open the car door and tumbles straight into Adam’s lap. Adam winces, but only a little; he hides it well. Blue's hands link around his neck; Adam reaches up to tug her closer and kisses her hard.

‘Who got to the top first?’ Ronan says, and Blue pulls breathlessly away from Adam to beam at him; in the back, Gansey scowls.

Ronan’s trying his best not to think at all as he starts the car; if he does he knows he'll spiral, and he needs to be able to focus on the road. He turns his music up very loud and no one protests, thank fuck. The beat is soothing, like a pulse. His hand clenches and unclenches on the gear-stick the whole way home.

*

Adam seems fine at school over the next couple of days; he's back to his old self, joking with Ronan, and even smiling at Gansey.

Ronan spends all his free time either on his laptop or at the library, doing research.

What if he's wrong?

What if he's right?

 _'It could be a matter of life or_ _death,'_ one website tells him. _'Violence in the community is everyone’s business.'_

Even though Ronan's mind is roiling constantly, he doesn't speak to anyone about what he's thinking. It would feel like a betrayal to talk to Mom, or Dad, or Gansey about it; even if he tried to bring it up hypothetically, they might make him say who it was. He needs to talk to Adam first, but he doesn't know how.

He finds himself trembling at random moments, his heart racing as if like he's the one in danger. He can't sleep at all for trying to think what to do. Ronan doesn't deliberate over decisions ever, but this is the biggest decision he's ever made in his life. If he fucks up in one way he's lost Adam's friendship. If he fucks up in another –

He's not going to think about it.

The only thing he ends up doing is texting Adam way more than usual all week. He texts him every stupid question he can think of: about homework, TV shows, even the weather. One thing he can rely on is that Adam is always replies to texts quickly, usually within fifteen minutes. Each time he sends a text, Ronan finds himself pacing back and forwards, chewing his nails and the bracelets on his wrist, until Adam texts back. Then he feels relieved for about ten minutes before it all starts again.

Saturday night, Ronan texts Adam at seven p.m. No response. After an hour and a half, he calls Adam, and gets his voicemail.

It's probably fine. He  _said_ he didn’t have plans tonight, but probably he’s out with Blue. Ronan texts her; no answer. He paces, paces, paces, up and down his room. 

God-fucking-damnit. He's being crazy. He's probably fine.

He texts him again.  _You okay?_

Three hours now. _Fuck it._

He starts to dress, hunts through the mess on his floor for his shoes. He'll just – quickly drive to Adam's place and knock on the door, and if Adam's fine, he'll pretend like he thought Adam had his textbook and if he's not fine – well, he'll cross that fucking bridge when he comes to it.

_What if he's really hurt this time? Worse than last time?_

_Fuck._  He should have confronted him the second he suspected. What he hell was he thinking, telling himself he couldn't interfere?

What was he thinking for the last two fucking years? _Oh, this? I was climbing a tree. I was in a storm drain. I was messing around in the Great Hall. I’m just bad at taking care of myself without you around, Ronan._ Ronan is the stupidest person in the world and he can’t stand that he’s been so easily duped into believing that Adam was safe and protected.

He's hunting for his car keys when phone buzzes. He lunges for it with so much energy that it skitters onto the floor. He picks it up; it's Adam. He floods with relief, so strong that he shivers.

_– You home?_

_– Yeah,_ he types back,  _why?_

He waits agitatedly for a response. None comes for two, three, four, five minutes. After ten minutes, Ronan shouts wordlessly and hurls his keys at the wall; hard enough that they scrape off a bit of wallpaper. He picks up random objects; pillows, then his school-bag, then shoes and books, and hurls them all at the wall, one by one. His phone stays silent, as do his sleeping parents.

Finally, his phone buzzes again. Ronan dives for it.

– _Can you let me in?_

And there is Adam, a miracle on his front doorstep, grinning sort of dreamily at him. He's wearing his nicest blue shirt, though it's all creased and rumpled for some reason.

‘Hey. C’n’I stay with you tonight?’

'Yeah,' Ronan says, his heart close to bursting.  _You're safe._ 'Of course.'

'Wow,' Adam says, looking around Ronan's bedroom. 'What happened here?'

'I was... stressed,' Ronan says, and Adam smirks, then collapses, backwards, onto the bed. Ronan lies gingerly next to him. Adam rolls over so they're facing one another.

He has a smear of Blue’s purplish lipstick on his upper lip; he smells like rum, and Blue’s roses-and-cardamom perfume. He’s still smiling; he's definitely drunk, and it’s a different kind of drunk to how he was at that birthday party. Ronan's hurt, for the briefest second, that Adam refuses to drink around him, but seems willing to drink with any number of girls who ask.

But Ronan doesn't have the energy to be angry about that any more. Or to hate Blue. Not when seeing Adam Parrish smiling like this makes his heart hurt, but in a much better way than it’s been hurting recently.

‘Look at our sobriety poster boy,’ he says, and Adam actually  _giggles._

‘I’m allowed to try it out once in my life, right?’ he says.

'You're allowed to whenever the hell you want.'

Adam tilts his chin up and looks dreamily out Ronan's window, probably reminiscing about Blue. 

Ronan wonders how his bruise is healing. If there are any more. And the sick, cold feeling that vanished when Adam appeared floods back through him. He's about to say something, when Adam speaks:

‘Hey, so, I was thinking about you.'

‘Me?’ says Ronan dumbly.

‘You’re the opposite to me.’

‘What?’

‘You know. I'm a baked alaska.'

‘Oh,' Ronan says, thinking back to that long-ago night. 'You remember that?’

‘Sure. I remember a lot,’ says Adam. He shuffles forward a little further, presses his knees to Ronan's knees.

‘The opposite,’ repeats Ronan slowly, trying to remember the conversation, and work out what the hell that means, but Adam’s too close and his mind's pretty much filled up with the faint freckles just below the creasing corners of Adam’s eyes.

Adam reaches out, his fingers trailing curiously over Ronan’s ear, and Ronan stops breathing.

‘Where’s your girl?’ he says on reflex, and instantly regrets it.

Adam’s hand pulls away like Ronan’s burned him.

‘Curfew.’

‘Right.’

There’s a long silence, then Adam says, almost too quiet to hear,

‘We’re going to break up.'

‘No, you’re not,’ says Ronan instantly.

He can say this with certainty, because he’s seen the way Blue looks at him sometimes, like when Adam remembers tiny details about her – 'Cassandra, – wasn't that your great-grandmother's name?' Or that time he crouched down to talk to a little crying boy in the supermarket. (He’s good with kids: calm, and attentive, and never condescending.)

Adam noticed Blue's expression that time in the supermarket and said, ‘What?’ slightly defensively. ‘Nothing,’ said Blue, but Ronan saw her little smile when Adam looked away.

‘I never really believed it. Me and her. Too good to be true.’

‘Don't be dumb,’ Ronan says. ‘You're a fucking catch.'

Adam’s silent for a long time.

‘Why are you so nice to me?’ he says suddenly, and he sounds almost angry. Ronan speaks without thinking.

‘Because I want to be,’ says Ronan. ‘Because it’s you.’

And Adam takes a quick, harsh breath. He’s holding himself in, Ronan realises, because he's close to breaking down, and all Ronan can think is how strange this is, because Adam’s never – he’s never – he doesn’t let himself come close to this kind of helplessness, in front of anybody.

Ronan lifts a hand but doesn't move it; it hovers between them.

‘I could never believe in you, either,' Adam says.

‘You can,’ says Ronan instantly, 'always,' and then regrets it, because who the fuck is he, to promise that? He's been hiding his real feelings since day one.

Adam’s breath is still hitching; it slows, then hitches again. After so many months of seeing Adam in tight and unshakeable control, the sound of him starting to lose it feels to Ronan like he’s under an avalanche. He doesn’t know what to do. He reaches out further: his hand, finally, settles into Adam’s hair.

‘S’okay,’ he says, his heart pounding in his throat. Adam doesn’t flinch or move away, so Ronan begins stroking Adam’s hair, clumsy and slow. It's soft and thick and a little tangled. This doesn’t mean anything.

After a while, Adam’s hiccuped breathing evens out. Ronan thinks he's asleep, but then Adam mumbles something. Ronan catches:

‘... getting worse.’

‘What?'

‘My dad.’

He’s never talked about this before, either. They're skidding onto totally new ground, and Ronan's off-balance. He doesn’t know what he’s allowed to ask, allowed to say.

‘He's always drunk lately. Mom's never around.'

'Fuck, Adam.'

He can’t let him go back there. He wishes he could make it so Adam never had to see him again. ‘Stay with me,’ Ronan says in a rough, desperate voice. There’s a long pause. 'Don't go back there. Please. Stay.'

'You don't understand. I need to go back.'

'Why?' Ronan says roughly, but Adam doesn't respond; a few more minutes and his breathing’s slowed right down again. Ronan thinks he’s really asleep this time.

Meanwhile, Roman’s own breathing is jagged and irregular. He frantically thinks of ways to keep Adam safe. But every plan hinges on convincing him not to go back home, and he doesn't fucking know how to do that. It’s not until the sky's lightening to metallic grey that he finally slips into sleep, hand fisted in Adam’s shirt like it can somehow keep him there. Praying.

But when he wakes up, the bed’s empty.

*

Adam was planning to spend all of Sunday with Blue. Mercifully, he answers all Ronan's texts that day. By evening, Ronan has a plan. He'll confront Adam at school on Monday, demand that he tell him what's going on at home, and then, if his suspicions are confirmed, tell him he has to leave home no matter what. Tell him he can stay at the Barns as long as he wants.

Even if Adam loses his temper, even if the friendship is lost forever, he has to do it. If he has to choose between gambling for Adam's friendship or his safety, there'll only ever be one option.

But Adam doesn’t show up at school on Monday, and doesn't respond to Ronan's  _The fuck are you?_ texts. Ronan makes it through half of first period before he bails. He doesn’t even make an excuse, just stands and walks out while Mr Ferrante’s glumly writing dates for the Treaty of Versailles on the board. He hears Gansey’s exasperated hiss – ‘ _Ronan!_ ’ – before the door swings shut behind him.

First, he calls Blue.

‘Hey. Seen Adam?’

‘No,’ says Blue, sounding strangely distant.

‘He didn’t show up to school.’

‘Oh,’ says Blue. ‘Well. Don't ask me. We broke up.’

‘What,’ says Ronan, gripping the phone. That's not possible. ‘When?’

‘Yesterday,’ says Blue, stilted. ‘It wasn’t… a fun day for me, Ronan. So. I don’t really want to talk about it right now. But I hope you find him soon.’

The line goes dead.

Ronan stares at the watery sky, thinks of how happy and disbelieving Adam was when he talked about Blue two nights ago. When she ended it, Adam probably got mean; he does, when he's hurt.

So that’s why he's absent, probably. Just – processing it all. 

Unless it's not why.

He spares a single glance at the classroom door before he's sprinting down the hall and out to the car-park as fast as he can go.

_*_

Ronan knocks in a frenzied hail on the door of Adam’s trailer. It swings open, and Ronan tenses. It's Adam's mom, holding a dirty tea-towel. She looks pinched around the mouth, exhausted, with thinning, grey-streaked hair and cracked hands. He notices for the first time that she has the same delicate blue eyes as her son.

‘Good morning, Mrs Parrish,’ he says, trying out the polite voice Adam and Gansey are so good at. It sounds false coming out of his mouth. ‘Is Adam home?’

‘He left for school an hour ago,’ she says, hands wringing the tea-towel violently, eyes wide with worry. 'Did he not make it in?'

‘Uh,’ says Ronan.

This was a stupid, _stupid_ fucking idea. Now she'll know something's up, and so will Adam's father.

'I must've made a mistake, ’ Ronan says lamely. ‘He will be in school, ma’am. He wasn't in class, but I've just realised he must be – at the library. I'm sorry to disturb you. Bye.'

She doesn’t close the door, stands there watching him walk away until he's out of sight.

*

Ronan's calling Adam every few minutes, but there's still no answer. He drives recklessly around the town, checking every possible location Adam might be. When he's run out of places, he speeds out onto the deserted farm-roads. His phone is still pressed to his ear: he presses redial every time he gets voicemail.

He has no idea where the hell he’s going, but he has to keep moving. He can’t stop driving, or else he won’t be able to – handle it. 

It's late afternoon and he's parked on the side of the road in a street he doesn’t know, almost out of gas and wanting to smash his head against the dashboard, when his phone rings.

‘Ronan?’

‘Adam?’ His voice cracks a little.

‘You okay?’ Adam says.

‘Where have you been?’

‘Just – out. Walking. I just didn’t feel like coming to school today. You okay?’ Adam says again.

‘I'm fine. Are you?'

‘Yeah, it’s just that you called me, um – fifty-four times,’ Adam says, a wobble in his voice.

‘Uh,’ he says, feeling his neck heat up.

‘You just thought, hey, fifty-fourth time lucky?’ Adam says, and, yeah, he’s definitely laughing at him.

‘Fuck off,’ Ronan says, but he’s so relieved, to hear Adam's laughter. 'Sure you're okay?'

' _Yes,_ ' says Adam, exasperated.

But he can't be okay, not really. He's just been dumped; and Ronan thinks again of Adam’s dad's eyes, of his mom suspiciously watching Ronan walk down the drive. Of Adam, all on his own, wherever he is.

‘I can come pick you up,' he says roughly.

‘Sorry. My parents are expecting me back soon.’

And Ronan doesn’t say anything at all to that.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow, then,’ Adam says, and it’s so clearly a lie.

Before Ronan can think what to say, the line goes dead. He presses re-dial, but Adam doesn't pick up.

*

Night is falling by the time Ronan reaches Adam's house. He walks towards the lights of Adam's trailer with a bright red plastic folder clenched in both hands. Everything's eerily silent as he knocks on the door.

'Hello?'

It’s Adam’s father. He looks innocuous, Ronan thinks, even as fear floods instinctively through him. He's about Ronan's height: thin, with a shabby beard, and those dull eyes Ronan remembers. He's wearing a brown, woollen jumper. 

‘Hi,’ says Ronan.  _What Would Gansey Do?_   He tries to wrench his face into a smile.‘I, uh. I was wondering if Adam’s home.’

‘You’ll have to come back tomorrow,’ says Adam’s father, his face hard like a wooden carving, and tries to close the door on him.

WIthout thinking, Ronan puts his foot in the door before it can shut. He clears his throat, meets Adam's dad's gaze. ‘I borrowed some notes from him. I'd just like to return them.’

He holds out the red folder. His hand’s shaking and he can’t steady it.

‘I’ll pass them on,’ says his father, reaching for the folder. Ronan pulls it out of his reach, still managing to hold his stare. The man's eyes are completely unblinking, as blank as a dark room.

‘I need to ask him question about school,’ says Ronan.  'Can I see him?’

‘I told you, no,’ Adam’s father shouts with a sudden volume that makes Ronan flinch, just a little. ‘Get out of my house. This is trespassing.'

‘Ronan?’

Adam’s voice is soft, like rain. Ronan seeks him out. He’s standing half-way out of the door to his room. His left eye and cheek are darkly mottled with bruises; When he sees Ronan’s gaze linger over his face, his hand flutters to his temple, like he's trying to shield himself from Ronan's view.

‘I told you to leave,’ Adam’s father is still hollering. 'Get out.' Ronan can smell his breath; a rotten mix of whiskey and halitosis.

He's trying to force the door closed on Ronan.

‘Adam,’ Ronan calls, needing him to understand. ‘I’m sorry. I–’

But he has no explanation. Adam asked him to leave things alone, and instead of talking to him like an adult, he showed up at his fucking house. He doesn't even have all the facts; he could have everything wrong. Adam won't meet his eyes, and Ronan knows he’s fucked up, deeply. Maybe he’s broken everything.

‘I’ll go,’ Ronan says, raising his hands shakily. A mix of fear and deep, sinking sadness is coursing through him. ‘I’m going.’

He turns and walks out the door, wiping his eye hard with his fist. He sits heavily back in his car and starts the ignition.

He glances up, and notices something: through the pale curtains of the trailer, he can see two silhouetted figures. One is Adam's father, and one is Adam himself. He leaves the car idling and watches; the figures are still for a long time, then Adam's father moves closer and Adam steps back; then they're still again.

Then Adam's father moves forward one more time, and this time Adam doesn't move. Then are are tangled together and then separating, tangled and separating, and Ronan is out the door again and bursting into the trailer.

He’s in a white rage; everything’s a bright blur of light apart from Adam and his father, who stand now before him in crystalline definition. 

‘You fuck,’ he screams at the bastard, the worthless bastard, then he's throwing punches wildly, barely aware of where his fists land, just needing to lash out. ‘I’ll kill you. How can you hurt him, your own kid, you fucking –'

‘Ronan,’ Adam is screaming raggedly.

It turns out Adam’s father is strong, and drunk enough not to care who gets hurt. Ronan's hurled against the wall, and his head snaps backwards with a sick crunch. He stumbles. Purple and green flash in front of his eyes.

He has to get to Adam, but he can’t quite – get up. He doesn’t feel much – just dizzy. Weird. Ground’s all sloshy. But then he's being pulled to his feet, and someone's hands are on him, guiding him to the door. He stumbles.

'Gotta lie down,' he mumbles, and curls up on the gravel.

‘Ronan,' he hears sharply, and warm fingers under his chin. ' _Don't pass out_.'

He looks up at Adam, backlit by the light shining through his windows, his face in shadow. They're alone out here. The trailer is, once again, eerily silent, with no figures in the windows. In the half-light, Ronan can just make out that dark river of bruises over Adam's face.

‘You okay?’ Ronan asks urgently, and Adam gives a strange sob-laugh.

‘You fucking  _idiot._ Can you stand?’

'Yeah.'

The dizziness is fading already; his vision seems to be back to normal. Adam insists on supporting him over to the car. He puts Ronan in the passenger seat and sits behind the wheel, then switches the light on and grips Ronan's chin gently to look into his eyes.

‘Did you black out?’ he asks.

‘No.'

‘How many fingers am I holding up?’

‘Three,’ he mumbles. Adam’s fingers are beautiful, he thinks. Intelligent, somehow. 'I like your hands.'

Adam ignores this, looking strained. ‘Who am I?’

‘Adam Parrish. Future Olympic dog-paddler.’

Adam gives a faint eye-roll, but he still looks worried. He asks Ronan a few more questions, then says, ‘Fine. I think it's a mild concussion. We probably don’t need to go to the hospital.'

‘But what about you?’ Ronan says, looking at Adam's swollen cheek.

‘I’m fine,’ Adam says shortly. ‘I’ll take you home.’

As they pull away from the curb, Ronan’s awash with relief, throbbing with it, that they're both out of that place. Fuck, but he wants to stay here like this forever, driving on and on.

The spectre of Adam’s father – the destruction in his eyes, those tangling silhouettes – lurks just beyond the safety of their car. He looks away from it, back at Adam.

‘You’ll stay with me?’ he asks.

The words come out all vulnerable, young-sounding, and he’s angry with himself. There’s a few long seconds of silence.

‘You want me to?’ says Adam finally, and the slight crack in his voice makes Ronan braver.

‘Yeah,’ says Ronan, and adds, in a rush: ‘I always want you to.’

*

Ronan’s lying in his bed, eyes closed. He feels fragile and weak; but it doesn't matter, because he knows, when he opens his eyes, Adam will be there.

When he does, he finds to his shock that Adam's face is inches away from his own. Adam's grey-blue eyes flutter in surprise that Ronan's awake, but he keeps looking at Ronan, still and solemn. Neither of them says anything.

Ronan makes a decision; he can blame it later on being concussed. He shifts closer still, and tracks his gaze over those gentle, knowing eyes; the faint freckles on the bridge of his nose and beneath his eyes; those two small dents on his cheek and the bigger one on his chin that must be old scars. The fading bruises on the left side.

Ronan reaches out and traces his fingertips gently over the right side of Adam’s face. Adam’s eyelashes flutter again, but he doesn’t ask Ronan what he’s doing. He doesn’t tell him to stop. He doesn’t say anything. Ronan sighs, takes his hand away, and shuts his eyes.

*

By the Ronan wakes up, they've already missed two hours of school. Adam's asleep in his bed, and Mom's here, putting fresh laundry in his drawers.

'Mom,' he croaks guiltily, wondering how the hell he's going to explain.

'That's okay, love,' she tells him, frowning at Adam; the dark bruising on his face is clearly visible. 'Adam explained what happened; I called in sick for both of you.'

Ronan has no idea what Adam's told his mom, surely not the truth, but she seems to know all about Ronan's concussion, at least; she tells him several times that he's to stay in bed all day, even if she has to tie him to it.

'And Adam's welcome to stay, too. As long as he likes,' she says firmly, looking at Adam with a gentle expression.

So they spend the day sleeping and watching old, scratched DVDs on Ronan's tiny television.

Ronan mostly sleeps. He can't fucking keep his eyes open; he hasn't really slept in a week and now his body's trying to catch up all at once. He keeps waking to see his bedside clock's jumped forward another few hours, and the water on his bedside table's been topped up again – Adam must be doing that, since Mom'll be out on the farm – and Adam's still there, under the blankets, knees hugged to his chest, intently watching  _Maurice_ or  _Lilo and Stitch._

'I'm not going yet,' Adam tells him when he wakes at midday, after his mouth opens to ask. 'Don't worry. Eat some sandwich. It's your favorite.' Ronan only manages a couple bites before he's dropping off again.

When he properly comes to, it's four in the afternoon, and he feels better than he has in days. He shakes his head slightly from side to side: no pain.

Adam props himself up on an elbow, looks at him closely. ‘Hey. You okay?’

‘Yeah,' says Ronan. 

‘How’s your head?’

‘Fine.'

‘Ronan,’ Adam says, reaching out to grip Ronan around the wrist. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s not your fault.'

Adam closes his eyes and shakes his head. Ronan twists his hand to grab Adam's. He wants to touch more of him, but he can't pretend he’s just concussion-woozy any more. There's a time and place for talking about those feelings, and it's probably not here or now.

‘Do you remember,’ Adam says, eyes opening. 'That poker night, when you got wasted, and tried to beat up Davies?’

‘I mean – not really. But I know what night you mean.’

'You don't get drunk like that any more,' he says, all thoughtful.

'No. Took a leaf out of your book.'

‘Do you remember what you said to me, when I brought you home?'

‘No.’ Ronan rolls gingerly onto his back, stares up at the ceiling.

There’s a long pause.

‘What did I say?’ he says impatiently.

‘Oh, I dunno,’ Adam says, and just like that his voice has changed from gentle to hard. 'You asked me to stay.'

Ronan’s confused. 'Is that it?'

‘Yeah,' Adam says. 'So. That’s why I stayed.’

Adam was definitely trying to tell him something, but he doesn’t get it at all, and anyway, he's not in the mood to analyse. He’s got Adam in his bed, they’re both warm and safe. That's all he wants to think about.

'You're staying tonight?'

Adam shrugs.

'You gotta,' Ronan tells him. 'You still haven't seen  _The Incredibles.'_

They watch three Pixar films in a row; they're nearly at the end of  _Monsters, Inc,_ watching Mike chucking snow-cones at Sulley on the screen, when Ronan tumbles back into sleep.

*

He wakes a couple hours later to find his bed empty, the Diana Wynne Jones book Adam was reading discarded on the bedside table. The clock reads 00:32. His heart jolts.

Adam can’t have gone back to his parents’. He _can’t_ have.

Ronan walks out into the hall. That's when he hears it: the soft, rhythmic knock of a wooden spoon in a metal pan.

There he is, in the kitchen, making his weird spice milk on the stove. There’s something that breaks Ronan's heart about it: the contrast between the jagged rage of last night, and the gentle motions of Adam's hands.

Ronan goes over to him. With only the light above the stove on, Adam’s bruises are softened. You almost can’t see them.

‘Hey,' Adam says. 'How’s your head? Did I wake you?’

‘Doesn’t hurt at all. Nah, you didn't,’ says Ronan. Adam looks at him closely, checking his pupils. Ronan feels self-conscious, and looks down at the floor. 

‘Want some?’ says Adam, and Ronan nods. Adam grabs a mug, pours a little milk in.

'It's missing something, I think,' he says.

The drink tastes much better than Ronan remembers. He’s surprised. 'It's good,' he says. He takes another sip and tries to work out all the different notes: cinnamon, nutmeg, maybe cloves.

‘Did you sleep much?’ he asks Adam.

‘Couldn’t.'

Ronan presses lightly against Adam's shoulder.

‘You know, when you didn't show up to school,' he says, trying to phrase it like it’s a joke, ‘I lost my fucking mind.’

‘Really?’

Ronan gives up pretending. ‘You can't go back there, Adam.'

‘I can handle it.’

‘It's not that I don't think you can handle it.’ He pauses, tries to get it right.

‘I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt you,’ he says eventually. It feels weak, inferior to what he really wants to say. 

Adam's fingers are gripping the wooden spoon very tight.

‘I didn’t want you to ever find out about it,' he says. 'I was afraid you'd see me as – I don’t know.’ Ronan gives Adam time to find his words. ‘I can't stand the thought of being defined by what's done to me, rather than what I do, or who I am.'

‘You think me knowing about your father is going to change how I see you? That's bullshit, Adam.'

Adam doesn’t seem convinced, but he doesn't say anything else about it. He tastes from the saucepan. 'Needs more nutmeg,' he says, opening the spice drawer.

Ronan stays at the table. He thinks of last night, of Adam’s intent gaze. Adam – he was trying to tell him something, last night. But Ronan doesn’t know what. And he recalls there are more things he needs to know.

‘Adam,' he says. 'Blue said she broke up with you.'

‘That's not true,' Adam says, and Ronan's heart stops for a second. They're still together, after all.

'I broke up with her.’

And Ronan’s heart jump-starts again.

‘But – but why? You were crazy about her.'

Adam stirs the milk. ‘I realised that relationship wasn't what I wanted.'

'What did you want?'

Adam's silent for a long time.

'I don't know,' Adam says finally, sounding exasperated. 'It's not worth discussing.'

'Adam,' Ronan says, softly. 'There's something–'

But – _fuck._  

Adam's looking at him questioningly.

In some ways it's harder, now, than it was to run up and open the door to Adam’s trailer. Then, he’d had no choice at all.

He could be silent, not risk it, and keep everything as it is.

But Adam's still looking at him, and he feels like the truth must be written in plain sight all over him; and he knows he can't hide this any more, he can't do it. It's too much feeling to contain.

He reaches out with a trembling hand to touch Adam's cheek; drags his fingertips slowly, deliberately, over his skin, without once dropping Adam's gaze. 

And Adam drops the spoon; it falls with a clang into the milk. Ronan pulls his hand rapidly away. _Fuck –_

Then Adam laughs, sounding a little wild, and kisses him.

*

They’re stumbling up the stairs, but it’s difficult, because they’re both so tangled up with each other. Ronan’s trying to kiss Adam’s neck. At the same time Adam’s hands are feverishly sliding under Ronan’s t-shirt. God, the feel of his hands, cool for once against the rapid rise and fall of Ronan’s abdomen.

They're torn between need and their desperate desire to be tender with each other. They keep having to stop on the way up to Ronan’s bedroom.

Adam cradles Ronan’s head in both hands as he backs him up very gently against the stair rail, whispering constantly between kisses, ‘This okay? Does this hurt?’

Then they get a little further, but then Ronan gets caught up with trying to kiss Adam senseless. Ronan’s frantic hand bumps Adam's bruised cheek and he hisses; Ronan pulls away, stricken, and Adam gasps, ‘Don’t fucking _stop.’_

Then Ronan stumbles at the top of the stairs because he’s more focused on Adam than the floor; they come dangerously close to falling all the way down. Once they’re steady, Adam lets out a breathy laugh, and then they’re both laughing, a little hysterically. Adam claps a hand over Ronan’s mouth.

‘Shhh, shh,’ he says, looking anxiously at Ronan’s parents’ bedroom door.

‘They won't wake up. I promise,’ Ronan says, but Adam doesn't take his hand away from his mouth.

Ronan bites his little finger gently, and Adam gives a sharp intake of breath. Then Ronan sucks two of Adam’s fingers into his mouth, just to see what happens, and Adam gives a low, aching gasp.

That's enough. Ronan tugs him into his bedroom.

When the door's shut behind them, Adam draws back and looks at Ronan, serious and uncertain all of a sudden.

‘We don’t have to,’ says Ronan. ‘Do anything you don’t want to.’

‘I want to,’ says Adam instantly. ‘Do you want to?’

For an answer Ronan surges forward and kisses him again, then walks Adam backwards till the back of his legs the bed. He’s fantasised about this moment, about throwing Adam down onto the mattress, but now it comes to that he’s terrified of hurting him. Adam solves the problem by sitting down.

‘Wait a sec,’ he says.

He’s breathing hard and slowly, chest rising and falling, staring at his clasped hands in his lap.

'What's up?' Ronan says, taking a step back, giving him space.

‘I want to,’ he says, looking up at Ronan. He gives an embarrassed laugh. ‘But I'm... scared.’

‘So’m I,’ says Ronan breathlessly. 'I have no fucking idea what I’m doing.’

‘Neither.'

‘I just know I –’

He doesn’t finish that thought – just falls to his knees. Adam looks down at him in bewilderment. Ronan lifts one of his beautiful hands, presses the knuckles to his lips.

‘Do you really – like my hands?’ says Adam uncertainly.

‘Yes,’ says Ronan, 'a lot,' and then, ‘Can I–’ He puts his hand on Adam's knee, slides it slowly upwards, looking at him questioningly.

Adam nods, lowering his eyes. Ronan goes straight for his fly, tugs open the button, pulls down the zip. Then he has to stop; has to press his forehead to Adam’s knee for a second.

And he feels Adam’s fingertips, brushing through his buzzed hair.

‘C’mon, Ronan,’ he moans. ‘Please – don’t make me wait any more.'

‘Okay, fuck, okay,’ Ronan says, and presses his face to Adam’s crotch, mouths through the fabric. Adam’s so hard; he can feel him. _God._

Ronan loves sucking Adam Parrish’s cock. He knew he would, because it’s _Adam,_ but he didn’t know he’d love the _act_  so much. The taste of him. He pulls off for a second to tell Adam as much and Adam, who’s already flushed, flushes deeper still – Ronan watches the colour spread, down to where his shirt is still half-buttoned, and it’s a crime that fucking shirt is still on.

‘Take your shirt off,’ Ronan tells him, still stroking him, and Adam does so obediently, which is hot.

But it's hotter when Adam arches and comes in his mouth.

Then Ronan’s up with Adam on the bed, saying desperately, hoarsely, ‘Come up here, come on,’ and they’re kissing, and Adam makes a soft sound.

Oh. ‘Can you taste–’ Ronan gasps.

‘Yeah–’

 _‘God._ That’s so fucking hot–’

They’re kissing, and then Adam, very gently but deliberately, puts a supporting hand behind Ronan’s head and says, 'Get on your back. I've got you.'

‘And stay the fuck down,’ he adds sternly, then ruins it grinning and leaning down to kiss Ronan. But then he's pinning Ronan's wrists to the bed. _Fuck._

‘This is fun,’  Adam tells Ronan happily, once he's unbuttoned his shirt. He’s straddling Ronan and grinding lazily into him. It is  _killing_ him.

‘No shit,’ he manages.

‘I thought it’d be more, I don't know, serious.’

Adam's hair keeps falling into his eyes and he keeps stopping to brush it away. Ronan feels like every part of him is fragmenting.

‘Parrish,’ Ronan bites out. ‘Please, I’m begging you.’

‘Could get used to hearing that,’ says Adam, and then dips his head. He trails kisses all the way down Ronan’s chest and stomach, then noses into the hair peeking above the hem of his pants, before tugging them down. When his hand is finally, finally around Ronan, Ronan groans much more loudly than he meant to.

Adam wriggles down the bed and settles between Ronan's legs. Then he looks up. His expression is uncertain, almost scared.

‘What if I can’t make this good?'

‘Adam,’ Ronan says softly. ‘Anything with you is gonna be good. It’s _you.’_

Adam looks lost.

‘Just, please, please –’ Ronan moans. His ability to modulate volume is gone.

‘Okay,’ Adam says hurriedly, and then his mouth is on Ronan – and Ronan is completely lost, lost in the fucking tidal waves of pleasure and the sight of Adam looking up at him through his eyelashes, and then he completely loses control of everything, his voice, his muscles, his mind.

And Adam’s there beside him, stroking his head and kissing his ear, nipping lightly at his earlobe.

‘You okay?’ he says, stroking Ronan’s head.

'I'm good,’ Ronan says happily. ‘You?' He lightly reaches out to touch Adam's fading bruises.

'I'm good, too.'

*

‘Adam,’ Ronan says hoarsely, after they've been making out for an hour or so. ‘How long have you known you liked boys?’

‘Oh,’ Adam says. ‘Boys, plural, when I kissed Tad Carruthers.’

‘What?’ Ronan shouts.

‘Shh.’

‘My parents didn’t wake up when Declan threw a garden hoe through their bedroom window one morning, now tell me when the fuck you kissed Carruthers.’

Adam laughs, nuzzles Ronan's cheek.

‘Don’t worry,’ he says. ‘It wasn’t anything special.' Ronan just looks at him expectantly, so Adam sighs and goes on. 'He picked me up in a thunderstorm, and I was drenched, and kind of on edge, and he let me use his shower and borrow his clothes and he was surprisingly sweet and – I don’t know. Can we get off this topic, please.'

Ronan scoffs. ‘I never liked Carruthers.’

Adam leans in and says softly against his mouth. ‘Can’t believe I’ve finally got Ronan Lynch into bed and we’re talking about Tad fucking Carruthers. I would never have gotten with him if I'd thought I had a chance with you.'

Ronan kisses him hard for that.

'Really?' he pants, after they pull apart. 'You would've – even back then?'

'I was trying to sort of give you signs for a while, but you never seemed to respond, so I figured you weren’t interested.’

‘No you weren't. What fucking signs?'

'Like – when we were sitting by Alicia Mertens' bins, but then you kept saying I was drunk. I thought you were uncomfortable, so I backed off.’

Ronan groans. ‘I’m a dumbass.’

'Yeah. It's good you can admit it.'

They kiss sleepily until after a while Adam cuddles into him, and Ronan wraps his arms around him, keeping him close. They fall asleep like that, Adam’s face buried in Ronan’s chest, holding one another tightly, both unwilling to let go.

*

‘I _promise_ they didn’t hear us,’ Ronan says, rolling his eyes and tugging on his pyjama pants, as Adam sits cross-legged in the middle of the bed. He's wearing Ronan's  _Spider-Man_ pyjama bottoms and nothing else; he looks unfairly good.

‘It was so stupid, Ronan. You might have a fucking concussion. I don’t know what the hell we were thinking.’

Ronan’s stops looking for his t-shirt.

‘Do you – do you regret it?’ 

‘No,’ says Adam instantly, and gets up to come over and kiss him. In the morning light his bruise is much starker, a weird patchwork of yellow and purple, but Ronan forgets about that the second Adam's breath is ghosting over his lips.

'Of course I don't regret it,' Adam says.

They hear the thunder of feet, which means Matthew is up. Adam glances at the door, then at his phone. Any second now he’s going to say he has to go back to his parents'. 

'Mom could call in and get us another sick day,' Ronan says. ‘Can’t you stay?’ he says. He means forever, but that might be coming on a little strong. ‘Matty’ll be gutted if you leave. He’ll want to take you out to milk the cows and ride the tractor and everything.’

Adam bites his lip, then puts his phone away and smiles. ‘Yeah. I guess I can stay.’


End file.
